After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 4

I was listening to the Star Wars soundtracks. It's working!

It's working! Sometimes that's just all I want to do is listen to Star Wars music. Hello there. General Kenobi! Master, the Chancellor is very powerful. You'll need my help if you're going to arrest him.

For your own good, stay out of his affair. I was so engrossed in my Star Wars. I sense a great deal of confusion in you, Yoke Skywalker. I forgot the football game had started and was like, uh-oh! It's over, Anakin! I have the high ground! Nooooooo! Are you sure this thing is safe? It's not really a Star Wars weekend, but now I'm thinking about it.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Yeah, it's true. I have been known to forget football because I'm engrossed in Star Wars. I even identified myself to the Syracuse students on Monday as a Star Wars nerd.

I'm not sure who's more impressed with that. I would actually think that my fourth and fifth grade boys that I teach on Sunday mornings at my church, that they're more impressed with me being a Star Wars nerd because they always want to talk Star Wars with me. So yeah, that's one of my claims to fame.

If you listen to this show for, I don't know, 55 seconds. No, we don't mention it that often. But I do make Star Wars references all the time. It might be me in the entire radio industry that is the Star Wars nerd.

There are other people who love Star Wars, I know, but it's become one of the staples. That and talking about food and my dog and family challenges, just family in general. I said to the students on Monday that one of the ways that you make a personal connection with an audience is that they invest in your life, not just in your sports opinions. And it always blows me away that I can deliver what I think is the most brilliant, insightful, engaging, impressive piece of analysis about a game or an event. And yet I mentioned that my dog snores really loudly and she's 13 and she's half deaf and I have to yell at her in the neighborhood and you all think that is far cooler than anything that I could say about sports. And so it makes me question, why exactly am I talking about sports when what you most care about is my wacky life?

Yeah, no doubt. I get more reaction to Grammy Helen, to Penny, even my cat Sugar. People request my cat on the radio because she made her debut during the pandemic. She's like a circus act. And actually, if you didn't see the Super Bowl edition of Ask Amy Anything that Jay and I did, so we did it on Zoom, he was in his home and I was in mine. I did not realize the cat was behind me photo bombing the first part of the video.

I had no idea. But this is what she does. She creeps. And so she was apparently on the chair while I'm talking and I'm looking at the camera so I'm not looking at the screen.

It's one of my pet peeves when people are on Zoom and they're looking down because they're looking at the screen instead of looking up and looking at the camera. Anyway, no idea that the cat's tail is behind my head, like flipping back and forth or that her ear is poking out from behind my shoulder. So if you haven't seen it, the demon makes a cameo in our Super Bowl edition of Ask Amy Anything that's on the YouTube channel. So yeah, I even got questions about my dog and my cat from the Syracuse students. Like I'm telling you, it's a thing. People care far more about my pets than they do about my football analysis. What is that about? Am I in the wrong genre?

Should I be doing... I don't know what type... Producer Jay, actually if you ask him, producer Jay is determined to start a network that's nothing but pets. That's what he wants to do. He's a huge sports fan, but he is so sure that we could start an entire radio network that's nothing but pets and people would be all in. It's because some of our craziest shows with the most listener interaction have been revolving around our pets, of course. I need a break from the pets too. I'll never ever again take my pets to work.

During the pandemic, that was the worst idea ever. It cured me of ever wanting to do a take your pets to work day. So yes, they are home and snoring and I am safely in the studio and I can get back to my brilliant sports analysis that you all apparently don't care about. What? I'm here to tell you my dog is more interesting than my sports analysis.

It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Lots of you sending me tweets and messages now, so thank you for that. If you want to hear my story about speaking to the students at Syracuse University, which is my alma mater, really was a full circle moment for me.

Kind of one of those pinch myself. I don't get nervous speaking to athletes or coaches. I don't get nervous for the most part. I mean, every now and then I get butterflies when I turn on the microphone just because I care. But nervous would not be the right way to describe it.

I was nervous on Monday because it was so important to me. It was so monumental for me to be invited back to speak to students and now to be able to teach them. So if you missed that story, it's hour three of the podcast. I just shared it about an hour ago, so you can check that out.

After Hours, AmyLawrence.com. But the podcast is fresh and available for you every weekday morning, not long after we get off the air. I know many of you do listen on demand, and that was one of the big questions I got from the students, is how do you incorporate the new technology and the digital element? In fact, one of the degrees that's offered now at Syracuse is broadcast and digital broadcast. So it's no longer just terrestrial radio. We've known this for a long time. But I continue to say that the most successful digital options are connected to a radio or TV platform.

There are very few that break out on their own without a radio or TV platform to promote or where the host made his or her name. In fact, most digital options are, in fact, TV or radio, one or the other, right? So you still need the skills, and you make the platform work for you.

You make the digital option work for you as opposed to feeling like you're a slave to it. So yeah, there's a lot of fun stuff that I'm going to be able to do with the students. But here's the crazy part, Carlos. I originally designed this course, The Art of Radio, for 11 weeks, 11 Mondays, three hours each. And because we missed the deadline to get it on the schedule for this spring semester, and we were still working the course, and so it turned into a one-credit four weeks. Classes are a little longer, about three and a half hours. Holy cow, do you think they can go that long without looking at their phones?

Probably not. I'm going to have to give them a bathroom break anyway. I'm going to need a drink break, so I'll give them a break. I want to be like Cliff Kingsbury, giving them a social media break.

Anyway, it's so Gen Z of him. Anyway, so I think my biggest problem is going to be condensing a lifetime of radio experience and knowledge into 12 hours. If I can do that and not freak them out or overwhelm them and still give them a chance to interact, it's going to be a very interactive course. I've told them that participation, like showing up and participating is half their grade, half your grade.

If you show up and you participate, it's half your grade. I don't know how I'm going to do it. That's going to be the hardest part, because you know me, I'm not very direct. I take the scenic route.

I meander my way through the overnight hours. I've also told them too, so this is going to be fun. Their first assignment, listen to a segment of After Hours and critique it, because some of them are going to be afraid to do that because they don't want to hurt the host's feelings. The host is fine. She knows what she's doing, but I do love that radio is very subjective.

Some people will tell you that they never miss a show because they love it so much no matter what we talk about. Others will tell you I'm the biggest idiot on the planet. Totally fine.

That's the beauty of having bazillions of options, right? So yeah, I'm going to start with that. It's going to be the assignment you have to come to class with. You have to critique.

Okay, maybe class number two. You have to critique a segment of After Hours. Maybe I should have you do that. Could you do it? I could do it.

What you want to do is make it easier for your students. Have them critique a segment that I'm running aboard. They'll be like, oh, your producer missed a cut.

No, no. So you don't get that. I know you think that people blame you for mistakes. People blame me because they don't know what's happening behind the scenes. The majority of radio listeners have no idea what you're doing behind the scenes, behind the double pane glass. We mention a board every now and then and the technology, but trust me, Carlos, I get the blame for it.

So it's totally fine. And I would say most people, oh, life is not fair. I would say most people, I make a big deal of mistakes because I'm a perfectionist, which is really a bad combination in this business. It's impossible to be perfect, but most people don't hear the mistakes that or they hear them and then just it's filtered. It's in one ear ball and out the other. So, yeah, all of this to try to impart knowledge on students. Oh, dear.

They may never be the same, but I'm going to try it anyway. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence here on CBS Sports Radio. I don't know how much sports will talk, actually.

I'm not sure if we'll get into any type of sports debate because it's really more about creating a show that is engaging and that connects with sports radio listeners. But I suppose I could assign them this impossible challenge. How do you fix, quote unquote, the NBA all star game?

How do you do it? If you haven't noticed, we are in an all star crisis in pro sports. And yes, I use that term loosely. OK, we're not it's a first world problem. In fact, it's not even a first world problem. It's a first world sports problem.

So we're not talking about life or death here. But have you noticed that every single league is attempting to tweak its all star format? Think pro bowl games, right? Pro bowl games.

Can we potentially play flag football on the basketball court? That might be interesting. I don't think the guys would go for it. Although, you know, a lot of these guys maybe. Oh, my gosh. Do you know how most pro athletes want to be musicians?

Right? Musicians want to be pro athletes. Do you know how many pro athletes want to be world class musicians and have groupies?

Do you think we could potentially do something? What's that video game? Guitar hero? Guitar hero! That's it. I figured it out. We need the NBA athletes, the all stars to engage in a rousing guitar hero competition. Or maybe video games. I don't know.

I mean, something different. Because when you've got the coach of Team Lebron. Lebron was the captain.

Michael Malone of the Nuggets was the coach. When you've got him attempting to sugar coat it, but really telling you what he thinks about the all star game, there better be warning sirens going off in the league office. It's an honor to be here.

It's an honor to be a part of a great weekend. Great players. But that is the worst basketball game ever played. How do you fix it?

I don't know if you can fix it. I mean, I give Joel Embiid, Kyrie Irving. Those guys were competing. Torello's on the floor and some of the guys to play harder to try to get some defense in. But no one got hurt. They put on a show for the fans. But that is a tough game to sit through.

I'm not going to lie. He was on the bench in the middle of all the action. And he said it was a tough game to sit through. He doesn't have to do anything. He just has to sit there and look pretty. That's all he has to do. And somehow it was tough for him to sit through. Now, he's lamenting effort.

Right? So he's lamenting effort or the lack thereof. That's what he's lamenting. He's certainly understanding that these guys have incredible skills. It's a glorified layup line. We're seeing them tee off. They may not do it Saturday night in the skills competition, the slam dunk competition, but that's what they're out there doing.

They're showing off. Which I don't have a problem with, but let's not call it a game. And honestly, we'll see what the numbers say. Okay, so the TV viewership numbers will tell the story. The NBA knows how to throw a party. There's no questioning that. In fact, the NBA is better than any of the other leagues of attracting the brightest stars, the celebrities, the musicians, the in-crowd, if you will.

The opposite of me. They're attracting the in-crowd for their NBA All-Star festivities. Regardless of where they go, although some cities have a more celebrity-heavy presence than others, but the NBA throws an incredible party. Will the viewers stick around for the game itself is what they want to know.

And why does it matter? Well, because they sell advertising. You can't be charging your sponsors what the Super Bowl charges its sponsors and its advertisers. You can't be increasing the advertising rates if there are no viewers that are sticking around for the All-Star affair. So we'll see what numbers show up.

But I'll give you this for perspective. The Pro Bowl games, so the NFL's new version of its All-Star Weekend, which is a different challenge in and of itself because it's after the season, though that does make it easier on the athletes, right? Because we know they're not concerned about getting an injury that will affect them for the rest of the season. But the Pro Bowl games, they ended up with six million-plus viewers. Compared to an NFL game itself, like a game that counts, especially one between two higher-profile teams, that's chump change. Six million viewers. But I guarantee you, oh, I shouldn't guarantee you.

I am fairly confident that six million viewers dwarfs what the NBA All-Star game will get. But I could be wrong. Nah, I don't think so. Huh. I'm second-guessing myself. Never second-guess yourself.

You sound like a dope. Well, because I'm thinking it's a Sunday night, and Sunday night's a big TV viewership night. But it was also on TNT, so that may have something to do with it.

Now, I'm going to go with my first answer. I would be stunned if the NBA All-Star game got anywhere close to the six million viewers that the Pro Bowl games got. I could be eating my words soon.

But I feel like flag football, even this kind of crazy flag football slash competition that the NFL did, it had its celebrities, too. I like the atmosphere a little better, I think. So we'll see. Now I'm going with my first answer. Always go with your first answer. Carlos is nodding at me. Always go with your first answer.

All right, you can find me on Twitter, A Law Radio. I don't know how to fix it. Mike Malone doesn't know how to fix it. Honestly, if one of my Syracuse students can come up with a way to fix it, then instant power.

Instant, like, you can get rich that way if you can figure out a way to fix it. No doubt they're trying. And we're seeing every league try it. The NHL has gone through a metamorphosis when it comes to its All-Star competition. Certainly, the NFL has gone through multiple iterations that are still trying to figure out the right formula. We'll see if they keep this one. The NBA has definitely changed.

They've gone with the whole captains and drafting, and they're trying to dress it up. But 184 points? I mean, your MVP had 55. How can you give out an MVP for a game when there's no defense? Or a game when they're not trying, which is what Malone says? How do you give out an MVP?

There was nothing valuable about it. There's no most valuable player, and it's named after Kobe Bryant, who always gave effort. Didn't he injure somebody once in an All-Star game? Dwyane Wade? Shoot, I feel like there was some type of a play between Kobe and D Wade where D Wade got injured. Maybe it wasn't Kobe, but Kobe, he cared. He did.

He would try, especially in the late stages when his competitive nature kicked in. So, if you're going to name the MVP after Kobe Bryant, you're actually going to hand out an MVP? Maybe, just maybe, there should be some value in the game.

55 points? Because you're dribbling around mannequins and, I don't know, a glorified layup line? There should be no MVP.

Or take Kobe Bryant's name off it. Take my name out your mouth. I don't know where I got that from. I'm a little bit delirious. I drove seven hours on Monday. I was away from my home for 13 hours. The dog saw me for 10 minutes, and then I left again. So, yeah, this is the only reason I'm second-guessing myself, because I typically do not do this. You know me.

Come hell or high water, I'm ready to die on that hill. All right, good morning to you. It's a Tuesday. Hope you had a good holiday weekend. My Monday was amazing. It left me delirious, but totally worth it. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio.

You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. Derek stands up, puts his left hand on his hip, now back under center. Play-action to Jacobs.

He's got plenty of time. Eyes downfield, lofts near corner for Devontae. Hands in the air, grabs it, touchdown Raiders. He beat a pair of Broncos to the near corner of the end zone on a beautiful strike from Derek Carr. You're listening to After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio.

Oh, those were the days. Raiders Radio Network with Jason Horowitz, who only gets the one year with Derek Carr as the quarterback. First year of Josh McDaniel's tenure, and the split takes place. And it's not as though this is a unique situation to the Raiders. We know this happens often where a coach is hired with a veteran quarterback or with an already established quarterback, a quarterback that someone else chose. It's not a quarterback that fits the offensive system that McDaniel's or another coach wants to run, and so then you have a disconnect. Now, depending upon who you asked, it is up to the coach to adjust for the quarterback skills, not the other way around. But that's not what happened with Josh McDaniel's. And ultimately, it led to a late season split where Carr was actually banished from the facility because they'd already made the choice that he wasn't going to be asked to return, or they didn't want him back, right? They were going to trade him or cut him. Good for Derek Carr that he refused to waive his no-trade clause, so he had the franchise over a barrel, so they had to release him and allow him to hit. Free agency, though, under his contract, the stipulations of his deal, he's already allowed to meet with teams where a lot of quarterbacks are not yet allowed to meet with other teams and free agents in general because we haven't gotten to the new league year.

It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. It's a unique situation for the Raiders, too. First time since 2014 they're looking for a starting quarterback. Derek, I think one of his teammates said that other than he and some of the equipment bags, no one else had been with the Raiders as long. So here is Derek being wooed. Good for Derek.

I appreciate that. I know that there's this cloud hanging over the whole quarterback situation by the name of Aaron Rodgers, but at this point Derek is the only one who's allowed to meet with teams, and so he has. He met with the Saints, though what we heard reported is that he was not interested at all in going to New Orleans or that New Orleans couldn't give him the salary that he wanted or that he would require.

And so that was not an option, at least initially, though maybe now that he's free to choose that changes. He met with the Jets as well, and his brother, David Carr, who is an analyst on NFL Network, was giving us some insight into Derek's conversation with the Jets and where he goes from here. Derek had a great trip, so he went there to get a feel for how they work, you know, from the top down. And everyone he met, and we knew he would love Robert Sala. I've known Robert for a while. MJ knows Robert. He's fantastic, and they hit it off, and they would love to work together.

But there's a lot of questions that have to be asked. He has to find out how the inner workings of, obviously, the front office works. But then also, I think the most important thing for him as a veteran quarterback, what is it going to be like as an offensive play caller and a quarterback in that relationship? Todd Downing is there. He has a relationship with Todd. Nathaniel Hackett is also there.

So how does all that work? And they had a good chat. They talked about a lot of different things. Obviously, the team is just in need of a quarterback and some stability there. They have a lot of good components. There's a lot of things that are very positive about the Jets. He had a great trip. So honestly, it's going to be a long process, though. He really only has the Saints, the Raiders, and the Jets to kind of compare those three places.

And so he wants to do his due diligence and see as many places as he can to get a feel for what the best place for him will be. That's David Carr, older brother of Derek Carr, who was also a quarterback in the NFL, though he had the unfortunate blessing. That's an oxymoron. He had the unfortunate situation of being drafted by the Texans when they had water bottles for their offensive line. And he got pounded, hammered. I don't know if his life, his actual physical life, was cut shorter by the pounding that he took, but I sure as hell know his NFL life was. And he had no shot. He had no shot. It was the beginning of the Texans' tenure.

Well, a little bit like they are right now, actually, almost starting from scratch. And he was the sacrificial lamb at the quarterback position. It was, I cringed a lot of times watching him get smushed and just crushed back when you could tackle quarterbacks, you know.

Maybe if he played today, it would be a different story. But he goes on to say on NFL Network, and you hear MJ is there in the background. He goes on to say that the reason Derek and Josh McDaniels couldn't work together in Vegas is because they weren't on the same page as how the offense should be run, which is what I was just talking about. David says his brother was really excited to work with Josh at the start, but they did not have the same philosophies about how to run their offensive schemes or even what offensive schemes were the best fit for the team.

And admittedly, and this is the debate, right? When you have a quarterback who predates you, who has a decade in the league, which is what Derek has, should he have some autonomy? Should he have some ability, some control, some choice at the line of scrimmage? Or is everything run through the head coach? And Josh McDaniels, who worked with Tom Brady for years, had a trust with Brady, and so there was a little more of that freedom. Plus, he's Tom Brady, to be fair. Those rings get you credibility. But when you're a quarterback who he doesn't know all that well, and he's trying to establish himself in his system, maybe a little bit heavy-handed with the control, or at least that was the opinion of Derek.

He looked around. This is according to his brother. I'm a veteran. I've been here. I know these guys. These are my guys.

They were here before you were here. And then Devante Adams, who he played with in college, who's his BFF, David says, when you're a veteran quarterback, you want some control at the line of scrimmage. You want to be able to utilize your superpower. Now, he was using you as the pronoun, but was referring to why it broke apart with Derek and Josh. I'll just read you this quote from David.

Maybe at some point we can get this audio, too. He wants to get to the line, decipher what the defense is doing, get in an appropriate play, and that skill wasn't utilized in Vegas under Josh McDaniel. So, yeah, it comes down to who has the power.

We just talked about this with a former All-Star wide receiver who had played in Denver and who had played in Seattle and had played in one other place. And he was talking about the situation between Sean Payton and Russell Wilson and how that's going to go. Who is going to have the final say?

Who is going to give up some control to make it work? Because, again, you're talking about a situation with an established quarterback who's got more than a decade in the league. Now, maybe he's been humbled by the fact that last year was an abject disaster, right?

It did not work. It was a brand new head coach who came from the offensive side of the ball and had worked with Aaron Rodgers but didn't know what he was doing, admittedly. Maybe there was a lack of respect there. Whatever the case, the way that the Broncos attempted to utilize Russell Wilson was failure.

Pure and simple, it was a total disaster. So, with Sean Payton coming in and his number one goal to be able to re-establish Russell Wilson, I mean, Mr. Unlimited, you have to re-establish Russell Wilson as a viable quarterback in this league. Is Russell going to be willing to give up some of that control? Is Sean going to be willing to listen to Russ, or does this become butting heads?

That's going to be a major challenge. I think they both want to win, though, and when you have a common goal, that can be the case. But, yeah, the story of Josh McDaniels and Derek Carr is not unfamiliar in the NFL when it comes to coaching quarterback.

It's just unfortunate that it happened the way that it did. If you follow Josh McDaniels' career, you know what happened when he was in Denver. I'm not saying he's the same guy, he went back to New England, he spent more years underneath Bill Belichick, and he worked with Tom Brady more years than the beginning of Mac Jones, but he definitely had an ego that was a major problem for him in Denver. Guys who challenged him, he just got rid of them. Jake Cutler, Brandon Marshall, it didn't work for that reason because his ego and the power was – he wasn't quite ready for it. I'm not saying that's exactly what happened in Vegas, only that you got to be willing to compromise when you're talking about a guy who's on the field.

Weirdly enough, I look up top 10 games of 2022 on the NFL Network, and one of them is Niners and Raiders. It's on the screen, I looked up and there's Josh McDaniels' mug. He was listening. Oh my gosh. He did that on purpose. It's magic.

All right, you can find me on Twitter, ALawRadio, also on our Facebook page After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Is Kansas the team to beat in March Madness? We're not quite there yet, but oh my gosh, we're getting there. This coming weekend is the last weekend in February. What? What? No. And let's see, what else?

We're here from Tiger Woods, and I know there was one more storyline for the weekend that I didn't have a chance to talk about because I wasn't here on Sunday night that I do want to at least mention, so we'll do a bit of a hodgepodge as we head up toward the top of the hour, maybe try to work in a couple calls, 855-212-4227, although Carlos, the calls have been a little bit dicey tonight. Yeah. I mean, you're the one who's talking to them before they go on the air, so... They're seemingly normal when I hang off the phone. Normal? What's normal exactly?

You need to find normal. Coherent. Coherent. Oh, well, that's a low bar we're setting. You don't have to say anything that's worthy.

Just be coherent. All right, here's our latest sports update. Oh, is it Brad Heller, new father? Brad, congratulations. Thank you. Welcome back. It's so good to have you, but also yay. How's daddyhood? Daddyhood is crazy. It's amazing.

I had no idea what to expect, everything people tell you, and it's everything you could ask for and more. I mean, he was awake when I came to work, so that was kind of hard to say goodbye. I'm impressed that you actually know what day it is and that you're supposed to be here. I don't. I don't know what day it is.

Don't ask me any of the dates. I was like, oh, there's sports happened while I was gone. What's... Oh, fantastic. Well, again, congratulations. We're glad to have you back.

You are listening to the After Hours Podcast. We played awful offensively, and even when we didn't play awful, when we got wide open shots or we found some way to screw it up. I mean, that's about as well as we can execute in the last three minutes and come away with nothing on three straight possessions. And really, we did a good job transition defense. It was our offense that gave them layups. I mean, a dumb or bad shot. I mean, we put ourselves in position a couple of times. We couldn't get back because of shot selection or whatever.

Here's Amy Lawrence. Never hold back, Bill Self. Just you need to light a fire under your team, especially a team that has championship potential like KU does. Kansas, and we heard the update with Brad Heller at the bottom of the hour. Now 23-5, but barely surviving an unranked TCU opponent. They go 26 of 66 from the floor, so shot below 40%. But even worse, some of the threes that they were taking were just, ew. Three of 16 from beyond the arc, they had 11 turnovers, very few free throws. Very often when you don't get to the free throw line, it means that you're not being the aggressive team.

And as Bill Self points out, you're settling for, well, he first said dumb, but then amended that. Unwise shots. Here's what I say about expectations. Now sometimes we get carried away with our expectations. When expectations are high, it's because a coach or a boss or a friend or a family member believes in you. They believe that you can meet expectations, otherwise they wouldn't put them on you.

And so I don't mind the idea of tough love. I don't mind the idea of these coaches who are so skilled at getting the best out of their players and have to adjust to new teams year after year. Bill Self knows what he's doing, and he's got high expectations for this team. So of course he needs them to not only raise the bar, but think about if this was a more quality opponent, what if this is March Madness and you just spit the bit in the final three minutes and that's the end of your run.

So a little more sense of urgency, but it's harder to do with a team when it's not pushed as much during a season, so you've got to prepare them for what's to come so they're battle tested. It's after hours with Amy Lawrence. They have to call me Professor Lawrence at Syracuse. No, I just, I don't know how I'm going to adjust to that, but that's something I've been playing and replaying in my head over and over because the woman who has hired me to be an adjunct professor at Syracuse insists that all professors, all instructors have to be called professor and their last name.

That's so strange to me. I don't think I'll ever get used to it. And Carlos is behind the double pane glass, like laughing with glee. It sounds so awkward, doesn't it? Professor Lawrence? Like, I feel like as though I'm 75 years old and need to be wearing horn rimmed glasses.

Well professors are getting younger and younger every single year. And I did call you Professor Lawrence earlier just to give you a taste of that. So you can get used to it. Should we practice that this week? No, let's not.

Let's not practice that this week. Maybe I'll get used to it and I'll wear it as a badge of honor, but I'm going to have to resist the urge to tell them to call me Amy because it's her house rule. It's her freaking house.

So I have to go by her rules. Yeah, I was really neat to be on campus on Monday. What an honor to be invited back to speak. The last time I was there, I was doing a game at the Carrier Dome on TV. It's not even called the Carrier Dome anymore, but it was really cool to be able to walk campus and take some pictures. A bunch of my fellow alum who I'm still in touch with sent us pictures, sent us pictures. So it was kind of cool. It all came flooding back. I'll tell you that much. I can't believe it's been so long.

And I don't even care. I wouldn't go back to their age if someone paid me because they're worried about what I was worried about. How do you find a foothold?

How do you get into this business? And it's shrunk. It's become smaller and smaller like many industries.

More people doing more, fewer people, excuse me, fewer people doing more work. But more and more people lining up outside the door. If you drop dead tomorrow, they would be volunteering to take your place.

And I know that sounds harsh, but it's so true. Yes, when people pay tribute to me on social for about 24 hours, okay, but then, hey, who's taking that job? Who's, I mean, that's the business. They'll step over your cold dead body on their way to your chair or to your camera. So it's pretty cutthroat business and I do not envy them having to jump into it now. Oh, thank God, I don't ever have to do that again.

I'm glad I lived through that already. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Let's see if we can work in a couple of calls here. Sandra is listening in Tennessee. Sandra, welcome to the show. Thank you. How are you doing? I'm good.

Thank you, ma'am. Okay, so I've been thinking about this because I watch NFL. I don't watch a lot of basketball, but you know, it kind of fits in. If they would push the pro bowl or say the All-Star game to after the playoffs, like say after the Super Bowl, then they play it. Same thing with the All-Star Bowl.

Maybe these guys wouldn't be so scared of getting hurt and would actually play and would give a good game. So more like what the NFL is doing. I mean, their Pro Bowl All-Star affair has always been between, well, not always, I guess, but for the most part, it's been between Championship Sunday and the Super Bowl because they still want it to matter. They want fans to still be in football mode. They want to fill that gap on a Sunday when there isn't football and when it's a bit jarring, but they also don't. They know if they do it during the season that no one's going to play, no one's going to give any effort because of what's still riding on the rest of the way. And I get that, but here's my thing as an NFL watcher, if you would give me that week off with no game, I'd be fine with that to watch them actually play the week after the Super Bowl and actually play. Maybe the NFL could bank on the fact that people are already jonesing, oh no, my football is gone.

Right. But do you think that would work for basketball? I think it would to a point, I think a big part of the problem is the basketball season is just entirely too long.

It's very long. I mean, that's where I lose interest at, but two, if these guys are worried so much about injury because they have the off season and it's the last game they're going to play, maybe they would play. Maybe although we might get the whole, oh no, I've got an ingrown toenail, I can't make it. I think a lot of guys would be checked out to be fair. And that does happen with the NFL as well, though you can see the more relaxed atmosphere. They will laugh and they'll joke and they'll have a good time. And to them, it's still like the trip to Vegas is a lot of fun, right? It's still something that they look forward to because of their peers. So yeah, maybe it would work.

I do think that the NBA has got to be willing to try everything, including flag football on the court, because right now, the product that they're putting out there, it's slowly dying. It may not be dead yet, but it's slowly dying. We're seeing every sport deal with an all-star crisis, except for a major league baseball. Right. And thankfully we didn't get the game the other night because we were trying to restream. But now I'm kind of glad I didn't here and all this talk. Yeah.

I would say you probably had something better to do, like watch paint dry. Right. All right, Sandra. Good to talk to you. Have a great Tuesday. Thank you.

You too. Let's talk to Melvin, who's in California. Melvin, what do you think about that idea?

End of the season. That's exactly why I was calling to suggest. She got a thought of it first, but yeah, I was thinking, yeah, if you just hold it at the end of the season, you don't have to worry about, players worry about getting hurt. You could do it for all of them, major league baseball, hockey, all the sports.

And might give a little incentive. I heard some people, baseball fans talking about how they miss the players wearing their own uniforms that represent their own teams. That way everybody gets to see the members. Each the national league and American league can wear matching hats or, you know, according to the league they're in. So you know that they're different and they can have their team logo on the hat, but then all the teams could wear their uniforms like they used to.

But bring back some of the old stuff, but yeah, just have all. Let me ask you this, Melvin. Would you watch it if it was after the season? So baseball, I disagree with. Baseball is actually a game. They have to play a game, otherwise they'd be there for a week. So they have to actually play a game. So we get the matchups that we want. The major league baseball All-Star game resembles an actual game.

Not the case with the NHL, with the NBA, or even with the NFL. But would you watch if it was after the season, after the NBA finals, you likely wouldn't have anybody from the finals because they've just played the maximum number of games. Would you watch it? I would. You would? As long as the players that entered it or were invited to it or voted into it were willing to play like a normal game. Yes, right.

Well, that's the caveat, isn't it? And then if not, a few people brought up the idea of doing the superstars used to be back in the day, where you have all these different sports activities that athletes could do. Not just dodgeball, but almost like lower level Olympic types. Camp games, summer camp, like you're at a field day. Let's do a field day. Yeah, yeah. There you go. Send them back to the combine.

They can do that again. Yeah, right, right. All right, Melvin. Good to talk to you.

Thank you so much for listening. Congratulations on your Jedi instructor training at school. Ooh, I'm a Padawan.

I'm a Padawan. There you go. I like that, Melvin. Thank you. Have a great Tuesday.

I love your station, the first caller, first time caller, long time listener. Awesome. Bye. Good to hear.

Thanks, Melvin. We'll try to do some more calls the rest of this week. I know we hadn't done a lot. We don't do a lot of them during football because it gets so total insane. Totally insane.

Total insanity. But I did say I wanted to just really quickly comment on something that happened Friday, I believe, was when the news broke. And he is going to be introduced by the Washington commanders this week. Eric Bienemy, not only their offensive coordinator, but their associate head coach. So a promotion as he leaves Kansas City with the blessing of Andy Reid and the Chiefs. They want him to go out and be able to chase this dream of his to be a head coach. And what I've been told, and again, we'll hear from him later in the week when he's introduced, is that he was in tears in accepting the job from Ron Rivera.

So two things. It does not surprise me that it's Ron because Ron is always on the cutting edge of welcoming in women as well as minorities. He obviously is Hispanic, and so he's a minority as a head coach and understands how important that is. But also that Bienemy is so grateful for the opportunity. For those of you who thought he didn't care, well, think again. We'll talk more tonight. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence, CBS Sports Radio. Boom!